Wilt in Nowhere

Chapter 14

The Shadow Minister for Social Enhancement sat in the grass against the wall with his head in his hands. He knew now he should never have come home a day early. He was equally certain about his marriage. He should never have come within a mile of the damned woman who could let loose those terrible dogs on two reporters. The sounds of snarls and screams, not to mention the knowledge that there was an unconscious man, his head covered in blood, lying on the floor of the garage convinced him of that. Harold Rottecombe had no intention of being an accessory after the fact of the poor devil being there and possibly even of his murder. If that lot hit the headlines, as it was almost bound to now, his position not only as Shadow Minister but also as an MP would be ended. And it was all the fault of that insane bitch. He should never have married her. A new thought struck him. There had been something genuine about her horror when she’d returned from the garage which almost convinced him she hadn’t put him there. Cut that ‘almost’. She really hadn’t known he was in there. In that case someone else was responsible. Harold Rottecombe searched for another explanation and found one. Someone was out to ruin his career. That was why the newspapers had been informed. Anyway it was too late to do anything about that now. The first thing he had to do was to get back to London by train. There was no way he could drive. A glance over the wall showed him the group of journalists and the TV men down at the bottom of the drive. They would be there all day and the police from Oston would undoubtedly come to the house. He couldn’t use the train station there. He’d have to get to Slawford to catch the train to Bristol and London. The town was outside his constituency and he’d be less likely to be recognised there. Against that it was a hell of a long way to have to walk.

On the other hand there was the river. It flowed through Slawford, and along the wall he could see the roof of the boat-house and a far better method than trudging for ten miles across fields occurred to him. He’d take the rowing boat and go downstream.

Behind him Ruth was putting her skills in tying people up to good use on Wilt. Having made sure he wasn’t dead or dying she had bound his wrists together with several turns of Elastoplast which wouldn’t leave any obvious marks like rope, and removed his jeans. Then she dragged him over to the Volvo estate, in the process getting some of Wilt’s own blood on to the Y-fronts, and by using two planks rolled him with great difficulty into the back. Next she tied a handkerchief across his mouth so he could still breathe, and covered him with newspapers and several cardboard boxes. Finally she took his knapsack and jeans, locked the garage doors and returned to the house to wait for Harold to return.

After half an hour she called his name but there was no reply. She went out into the garden and looked over the wall. There was a patch of crushed long grass where he must have sat but no sign of him. He had evidently taken fright and scurried away. It was just as well. She had to deal with the reporters at the gate. They could wait for a bit. She wanted to see what was in the knapsack. She went back to the garage and by the time she’d been through the bag she was completely bewildered. Wilt’s driving licence gave his address as 45 Oakhurst Avenue, Ipford. Ipford? But Ipford was away to the south. How come the wretched man had ended up in her garage? Like everything else it made no sense. On the other hand, if she dumped him somewhere near Ipford he’d have a job explaining what he had been doing without his trousers in a sleepy place like Meldrum Slocum. For ten long minutes Mrs Rottecombe sat and considered the problem before making her decision.

An hour later she went down the drive with Wilfred and Pickles and showed the group of media people there the supposed wounds the brutes from the _News on Sunday_ had inflicted on Wilfred.

‘They trespassed on private property and tried to break into the house and then when Pickles caught them they were foolish enough to kick her. You can’t do that to an English bull terrier and not expect the little darling to defend herself, can you, sweetie?’ Pickles wagged her tail and looked pleased with herself. She liked being petted. Wilfred was far too heavy to pick up but his hindquarters were impressively swathed in bandages. ‘One of the men attacked him with a knife,’ she explained. ‘That was a really horrid thing to do.’

‘No, I’m not prepared to answer any questions,’ she said when one reporter began to ask if it was true that–’I am far too upset. I can’t bear cruelty to animals and what those two men did was quite dreadful. No, my husband is in London. If you want to talk to him, you’ll find him there. I’m going to get some rest. It’s been a very distressing day. I’m sure you can see that.’

What the reporters could see was that Butcher Cassidy and the Flashgun Kid must have been completely insane to go anywhere near such fearsome dogs, and as for kicking the bitch…well, they must have been bent on suicide with that enormous Wilfred around. As Mrs Rottecombe went back to the house, opinion was divided among the men at the gate. Some were delighted that Butcher and Flashgun had finally met their match while others seemed to think they had shown immense courage, courage far beyond the call of duty, in pursuit of a story. No one was prepared to follow their example and presently the convoy moved off.

Mrs Rottecombe watched them go and then went back to the house to attend to Wilt.

She put his boots, socks and trousers into a garbage bag. She would dump them somewhere along the way. For a moment she considered taking Wilfred and Pickles but decided against it. She needed to be totally anonymous and people might remember seeing the dogs in the car. Then she checked the bottom of the drive from a bedroom window and was relieved to see that the reporters had left. At 9 p.m. she drove down to the road and was on her way south towards Ipford.